Tool (band)

Tool is an American progressive metal band from Los Angeles, California.  Formed in 1990, the group's line-up has included drummer Danny Carey, guitarist Adam Jones, and vocalist Maynard James Keenan.  Since 1995, Justin Chancellor has been the band's bassist, replacing their original bassist Paul D'Amour.  Tool has won three Grammy Awards, performed worldwide tours, and produced albums topping the charts in several countries.

See also: "A Dream Within a Dream" by Edgar Allan Poe

• Sweating, and breathing
  And staring, and thinking
  Sinking deeper
  And it's almost like I'm swimming
• I'm trying to remember when, but it makes me dizzy
• Seems like I've been here before
  Seems so familiar
  Seems like I'm slipping
  Into a dream within a dream
• And I'm sweating, and breathing
  Staring, thinking
  Sinking deeper
  And it's almost like I'm swimming
• It's the way you whisper
  Drag me under
  Takes me home

• Fuck you!
• People tell me what to say
  What to think and what to play

• I know you well, you are part of me
  I know you better than I know myself
• You are just a part of me

• Trembling at the thought of feeling
• Wide awake and keeping distance from my soul
• I am scared like you

• If consequences dictate
  My course of action, I should
  I should play God and just
  Shoot you myself

• Choices always were a problem for you
• What you need is someone strong to guide you…like me
• If you want to get your soul to heaven, trust in me
• Just do everything I tell you to do
• Deaf and blind and dumb and born to follow
  What you need is someone strong to guide you
• My gods will
  Become me
  When he speaks
  He speaks through me
  He has needs
  Like I do
  We both want
  To rape you

• I had a friend once,
  He took some acid
  Now he thinks he's a fire engine.

• I don't want to be hostile
  I don't want to be dismal
  But I don't want to rot in an
  Apathetic existence, either

• You know it hurt me
  But I'm breathing so I guess I'm still alive
  Even if signs seem to tell me otherwise
• Do unto others what has been done to you
  • This is a variant on the Golden Rule

• There's a shadow just behind me
  Shrouding every step I take
  Making every promise empty
  Pointing every finger at me
• Jesus, won't you f****** whistle
  Something but the past and done?
• I am just a worthless liar
  I am just an imbecile
  I will only complicate you
  Trust in me and fall as well
  I will find a centre in you
  I will chew it up and leave
  I will work to elevate you
  Just enough to bring you down
• Why can't we not be sober?
  I just want to start this over
  Why can't we sleep forever?
  I just want to start this over
• I want what I want

• My compassion is broken now
• So smell my soul is burning
• If I let you, you would make me destroy myself.  In order to survive you, I must first survive myself.  And I can sink no further.  And I cannot forgive you.  There's no choice but to confront you, to engage you, to erase you.  I've gone to great lengths to expand my threshold of pain.  I will use my mistakes against you; there's no other choice.  Shameless, now.  Nameless, now.  I'm nothing, now.  I'm no one, now.  But my soul must be iron 'cause my fear is naked.  I'm naked and fearless.  And my fear is naked!
  • These lines constitute Henry Rollins's spoken-word portion of the song; Maynard resumes singing while Rollins is speaking the last three words.
• Dead inside!

• You're dancing in quicksand

• Twice as clear as heaven
  Twice as loud as reason
• How could I let this bring me back to my knees?
• I'm helpless and I'm awake

• Free yourself from yourself

• All I knew
  All I believed
  Crumbling images
  No longer comfort me
• Thought I was high
  Thought I was free
  Thought I was there
  Divine destiny

• And the angel said unto me, "These are the cries of the carrots!"
• Let the rabbits wear glasses!
• This is necessary
  This is necessary
  Life feeds on life feeds on life feeds on life feeds on…
• "If God is our father," you thought, "then Satan must be our cousin."  Why didn't anybody else understand these important things?

• Constant over stimulation numbs me
  But I would not want you any other way
• I said, "I don't want it.  I just need it.
  "To breathe, to feel, to know I'm alive."
• I'll keep digging
  Until I feel something.

• Not all martyrs see divinity

• I've been wallowing in my own confused and insecure delusions
• I've been wallowing in my own chaotic, insecure delusions
• I wanna feel the change consume me
• Hoping I can clear the way
  By stepping through my shadow
  Coming out the other side
  Step into the shadow

• I sold out long before you ever even heard my name
• All you read and wear and see or hear on TV
  is a product begging for your fat-ass dirty dollar
• Shut up and buy my new record
  send more money
  fuck you, buddy

• What was it like to see
  The face of your own stability
  Suddenly look away,
  Leaving you with the dead and hopeless?
• Dreams are fading
  Carry my ancient soul
  Carry me into the light

• Bei zweihundert grad für fünfzehn minuten backen und keine eier

• Saw the gap again today
• Take care not to make me enter
  If I do, we both may disappear
• What is this but my reflection?
  Who am I to judge or strike you down?
• Yeah, I'm slipping back into the gap again
  I'm alive when you are touching me
  Alive when you are shoving me down
  But I'd trade it all
  For just a little
  Peace of mind
• If when I say I might fade like a sigh if I stay
  You minimise my movement, anyway
  I must persuade you another way
• There's no love in fear
• I'm staring down the hole again

• Some say the end is near
  Some say we'll see armageddon soon
  I certainly hope we will
• Learn to swim

• See, I think drugs have done some good things for us—I really do.  And if you don't believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favour: go home tonight, take all your albums, all your tapes, and all your CDs and burn 'em.  'Cause, you know what?  The musicians who made all that great music that's enhanced your lives throughout the years—real fuckin' high on drugs.
  • Bill Hicks audio clip from "Drugs Have Done Good Things," Relentless (1992)
• Today, a young man on acid realised that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration—that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively.  There's no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves.  Here's Tom with the weather.
  • Bill Hicks audio clip from Sane Man (1989)
• It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom is what it is, okay?  Keep that in mind at all times, thank you.
  • Bill Hicks audio clip
• A child's rhyme stuck in my head
  It said that life is but a dream
  I've spent so many years in question
  To find I've known this all along
• Black as holes within a memory
• I stick my hand into the shadow
• But the eyes seem so familiar
• Prying open my third eye

• Think for yourself.  Question authority.
  • Timothy Leary audio clip taken from How to Operate Your Brain (1994), 11:15–11:18.
• Throughout human history, as our species has faced the frightening, terrorising fact that we do not know who we are, or where we are going in this ocean of chaos, it has been the authorities—the political, the religious, the educational authorities—who've attempted to comfort us by giving us order, rules, regulations, informing, forming in our minds their view of reality.  To think for yourself, you must question authority and learn how to put yourself in a state of vulnerable, open-mindedness; chaotic, confused, vulnerability to inform yourself.
  • Timothy Leary audio clip taken from How to Operate Your Brain (1994), 10:07–10:58.

• I know you well, you are a part of me
  I know you better than I know myself

• So, we need you to find a comfortable space that's not only comfortable, but vulnerable.  I want you to shut your eyes and go there, and we'll meet you on the other side.
  • Maynard's spoken-word introduction
• What are you but my reflection?
  Who am I to judge or strike you down?
• But you're pushing
  And I'm shoving you
  And you're pushing me
  And I'm shoving you
• And I'm slipping back into the gap again
  I feel alive when you touch me
  I feel alive when you hold me…down
  Slipping back into
  Slipping back into you

• Painless hours of wasted motion
  • The original Peach line was "Painless hours of endless motion"

• It's some kind of psychedelic experience
• Our body is light, we are immortal
  Our body is light, we are immortal
  Our body is love, we are eternal
  Our body is love, we are eternal
• Omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, without judgment

• Locked in a place where no one goes
  • The original Led Zeppelin line was "They choose the path where no one goes"

• If you are calling from a secret spy phone, please press 5.

• There's a shyness found in reason
  Apprehensive influence swallow away

• Wear the grudge like a crown of negativity
  Calculate what we will or will not tolerate
  Desperate to control all and everything
  Unable to forgive your scarlet lettermen
• Clutch it like a cornerstone
  Otherwise it all comes down
• Hang on or be humbled again
• Defining, confining, sinking deeper
  Controlling, defining, and we're sinking deeper
• Choose to let this go

• But I'm still right here
  Giving blood, keeping faith
  And I'm still right here
• And if there were no rewards to heal
  No loving embrace to see me through
  This tedious path I've chosen here
  I certainly would've walked away by now
  And I still may

• I know the pieces fit 'cause I watched them fall away

• Disintegrating as it goes, testing our communication
  The light that fueled our fire then has burned a hole between us so
  We cannot seem to reach an end, crippling our communication

  I know the pieces fit 'cause I watched them tumble down
  No fault, none to blame—it doesn't mean I don't desire
  To point the finger, blame the other, watch the temple topple over
  To bring the pieces back together, rediscover communication

  The poetry that comes from the squaring off between
  And the circling is worth it, finding beauty in the dissonance

  There was a time that the pieces fit, but I watched them fall away

• Cold silence has a tendency to atrophy any sense of compassion

• So familiar and overwhelmingly warm
  This one, this form I hold now

  Embracing you, this reality here

• We barely remember what came before this precious moment
  Choosing to be here right now
• This body makes me feel eternal
  All this pain is an illusion

• We barely remember
  Who or what came before
  This precious moment
  We are choosing to be here
  Right now
• Stay inside of this holy reality
  This holy experience
  Choosing to be here in this body
• Celebrate this chance to be
  Alive and breathing
• This body holding me reminds me of my own mortality
  Embrace this moment, remember:
  We are eternal, all this pain is an illusion

• My blood is bruised and borrowed
  You thieving bastards, you have
  Turned my blood cold and bitter
  Beat my compassion black and blue

See also Fibonacci numbers.

• Black
  Then
  White are
  All I see
  In my infancy
  Red and yellow then came to be
  Reaching out to me
  Lets me see

  There is
  So
  Much
  More and
  Beckons me
  To look through to these
  Infinite possibilities
  As below, so above and beyond, I imagine
  Drawn outside the lines of reason
  Push the envelope
  Watch it bend

  Over-thinking, over-analysing separates the body from the mind
  Withering my intuition, leaving all these opportunities behind

• I embrace my
  Desire to
  I embrace my
  Desire to
  I embrace my
  Desire to
  Feel the rhythm, to
  Feel connected
  Enough to step aside and
  Weep like a widow, to
  Feel inspired, to
  Fathom the power, to
  Witness the beauty, to
  Bathe in the fountain, to
  Swing on the spiral, to
  Swing on the spiral, to
  To swing on the spiral of
  Our divinity and
  Still be a human

  With my feet upon the ground I
  Lose myself between the sounds and
  Open wide to suck it in, I
  Feel it move across my skin, I'm
  Reaching up and reaching out, I'm
  Reaching for the random or what-
  Ever will bewilder me, what-
  Ever will bewilder me, and
  Following our will and wind we
  May just go where no one's been, we'll
  Ride the spiral to the end and
  May just go where no one's been
  Spiral out, keep going…

• I have come curiously close to the end—down
  Beneath my self-indulgent pitiful hole
• I may find peace within the emptiness
• And in my darkest moment, fetal and weeping
  The moon tells me a secret—my confidant
• I must crucify the ego before it's far too late
• And we will come to find that we are all one mind

According to Danny Carey, the voice in this song is a person who called the Art Bell syndicated radio programme on 11 September 1997.^[1]  However, a YouTube video containing the original transmission can be found with an upload date predating the date provided by Carey.^[2]  A caller admitted some point later that he was the caller and that his original call was fraudulent.^[3]

• I'm a former employee of Area 51.  I-I was let go on a medical discharge about a week ago and, and...
• What we're thinking of as—as aliens, uh—they're—th-they're extradimensional beings that an earlier precursor of the, um, the space programme made contact with.  Uh, they-they are not what they claim to be.
• The government knows about them.  And, th-there's a lot of safe areas in this world that they could begin moving the population to now.  They are not!  They want those major population centres wiped out so that the—the few that are left will be more easily controllable.

• Eye on the t.v.
  'Cause tragedy thrills me
• It's no fun 'til someone dies
• I need to watch things die
  From a good, safe distance
  Vicariously, I live while the whole world dies
• Blood, like rain, come down
  Drum on grave and ground

• The universe is hostile
  So impersonal
  Devour to survive, so it is
  So it's always been

  We all feed
  On tragedy
  It's like blood to a vampire

  Vicariously, I
  Live while the whole world dies
  Much better you than I

• Here from a wild dream come true
• But I, I would wish it all away
  If I thought I'd lose you just one day
• The devil and his had me down
  In love with the dark side I'd found
• Prayed like a martyr dusk to dawn
  Begged like a hooker all night long
  Tempted the devil with my song
  And got what I wanted all along
• Shine on forever
  shine on, benevolent sun
  shine down upon the broken <br< shine on til the two become one
• Divided, I'm withering away
• Breathe in union

• A passionate spirit
  Uncompromised
  Boundless and open
• What am I to say to all these ghouls tonight?

• Listen to the tales as we all rationalise
  Our way into the arms of the savior
• Who could deny
  You were the one who illuminated your little piece of the divine?
• Ten thousand days in the fire is long enough
  you're going home
• You're the only one who could hold your head up high
  shake your fist at the gate saying, "I have come home now"
  Fetch me the Spirit, the Son and Father
  Tell them their pillar of faith has ascended
  It's time now
  My time now
  Give me my
  Give me my wings
• Set as I am in my ways and my arrogance
  Burden of proof tossed upon the believers
  You were my witness, my eyes, my evidence
  Judith Marie, unconditional one
  • Judith Marie Keenan (22 November 1943 – 18 June 2003) was Maynard James Keenan's mother

• You must have been high
• You must have been so high
• Weeping shades of indigo
• Liar, lawyer, mirror; for you, what's the difference?
  Kangaroo be stoned; he's guilty as the government

• Ten to two a.m., X, Yogi DMT, and a box of Krispy Kremes
• E.T. revealed to me his singular purpose.  He said, "You are the Chosen One, the One who will deliver the message.  A message of hope for those who choose to hear it and a warning for those who do not."
• This is so real
• It was so real
  Like I woke up in Wonderland
  All sort of terrifying
• You believe me, don't you?
  Please believe what I just said
  See the Dead ain't touring
  And this wasn't all in my head
• I can't remember what they said to me

• Work hard
  Stay in school
  Listen to your mother
  Your father is right, son
  Jesus loves you
  • These lyrics are played backwards
• Pure as we begin

• Angels on the sideline
  Puzzled and amused
  Why did Father give these humans free will?
  Now they're all confused
• Father blessed them all with reason
  And this is what they choose
• Monkey killing monkey killing monkey over pieces of the ground
  Silly monkeys, give them thumbs, they make a club and beat their brother down
  How they survive so misguided is a mystery
• Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here

• The Deceiver says, he says:
  "You belong to me. You don't wanna breathe the light of the others.
  Fear the light. Fear the breath. Fear the others for eternity."
  But I hear them now. Inhale the clarity. I hear the venom, the venom in what you say.
  Inoculated.
  Bless this immunity.

• Pneuma.
  Reach out and beyond.
  Wake up, remember.
  We are born of One Breath, One Word.
  We are all One Spark, eyes full of wonder.

• Tears in my eyes chasing Ponce de León's phantoms.
  So filled with hope I can taste mythical fountains.
  False hope, perhaps, but the truth never got in my way before now.
  Feel the sting. Feeling time bearing down.

• Free fall through our midnight, this epilogue of our own fable.
  Heedless in our slumber.
  Floating nescient we free fall through this boundlessness, this madness of our own making.
  Falling isn't flying. Floating isn't infinite...

• Judge, Condemn, and banish any and everyone.
  Without evidence.
  Only the whispers from within.
• Psychopathy.
  Misleading me over and over and over.

• [Keepin it calm. Keep calm. Keepin it calm. Keep calm. Keep calm. FUCK. Here we go again]
• Control, your delusion. Insane and striking at random.
  Victim of your certainty, and therefore your doubt's not an option.
  Blameless, The 7empest will be just that.
  So try as you may, feeble, your attempt to atone. Your words to erase all the damage cannot.
• A 7empest must be just that.

• And your death will profit off me

• Give him your love, give him your love to save him
• You can kill the revolutionary
  But you can't kill the revolution

• Opening strong with their first hit, 1993's "Sober," the crowd - predominantly made up of younger fans, rabid with anticipation - was rushed into a hot frenzy.  Lead singer Maynard James Keenan, as is customary for the enigmatic frontman, loomed in the background with his back facing the audience for most of the show.  And as the first few songs let their last few notes fade away, Keenan disrobed, removing various parts of his ensemble, leaving him with nothing more then black underwear and a stripe of black paint on his face.
• Tool has the goods and puts on a blinding display of heavy metal energy mixed with cerebral art focus.
  • Matt Dentler, "Tool in need of some repair," The Daily Texan (29 July 2002).
• Keenan…wore an all-black leather outfit, had his face painted black and stood on a spinning platform some distance from the front stage; he never seemed to look at the crowd.
  • Gavin Engler, "TOOL Concert 101," Law Society Gazette (1993).
• We always try to think of something that's never been done before, you know, as far as album packaging, and I've been a fan of stereoscopic photography my whole life and belong to the Southern California Stereoscopic Club.
• And we thought if we could get this to work with our budget, you know, and put this out, it'd be really unique and reflecting, you know, a lot of the artwork that I appreciate from the '70s.
  • Adam Jones on his artwork for the 10,000 Days album packaging, quoted in "TOOL Guitarist Wins GRAMMY For 'Best Recording Package'," Blabbermouth.net (11 February 2007).
• In an interview with Rolling Stone last July, Jones reiterated how the lawsuit was affecting the band.  "It's costing millions and millions and millions of dollars to defend us.  And the fans are all going, 'We want a new Tool album. What the fuck?'" Jones said.  "But the point is, we're fighting the good fight.  We're going to trial and we want to crush them.  But every time we've gotten close to going to trial, it gets postponed and we've wasted money and time and it has just drained our creative energy.  We bought an insurance policy for peace of mind, but instead we would have been better off if we never had it and just dealt with the original lawsuit."
  • Daniel Kreps, "Tool Speed Up Progress on New Album After Settling Lawsuit," Rolling Stone (Sunday, 15 March 2015).
• Tool is a fascinating anomaly.
• The video presentation…offered a stunning visual complement to the band's furious sonic assault.
• In the popular musical climate of today, which seems to favor the blandness of processed rap metal or the redundancy of uninspired readymade pop outfits, it is refreshing that a band such as Tool exists to add some much-needed freshness to the contemporary musical landscape.
  • Keith P. McManus, "Tool thrills audience," The Flat Hat (5 October 2001).
• Wrath and pain, desire and self-loathing, ferocity and meditation all find a complicated balance in Tool.
• Avoiding self-glorification, the band played in near-darkness under video screens on Monday.  Maynard James Keenan, Tool's lead singer, stood on a platform behind Adam Jones on guitar and Justin Chancellor on bass, with his face in shadows, while Danny Carey on drums toiled meticulously by his side.
• Its songs hammer and seethe, melding the lowdown guitars of grunge, the odd meters of progressive rock and the whiplash stops and starts of thrash.  Mr. Keenan's sustained, almost androgynous voice hovers within the music, desolate but impervious to the tumult around him.
• Tool's songs encompassed sullen calm, rapid-fire onslaughts, spacious chords and nimble-fingered counterpoint.  Standing room sometimes became a mosh pit.  But midway through its two-hour set, Tool chose stasis with a patiently tolling guitar vamp like a mantra.  Its fastest music also had a ritual quality, pounding and repeating like drummers in a trance ceremony.  Songs that rev up and end abruptly on Tool's albums only accelerated further, riffing harder and harder as if, through furious motion, they could somehow break through Tool's perpetual tension to reach a long-denied release.
  • Jon Pareles, "POP REVIEW; Flailing Wildly to Escape the Darkness," The New York Times (6 October 2001).
• The music of Tool is the dark slime of a warm, black night.  Tool is an escape, a subtle revolution of sound and perception.  The musical landscape this band crafts…is the fulfilment of life, surreally black and purely haunting.
  • Alexander S. Peak, "To Tool," alexpeak.com (23 January 2008).
• "This song goes out to," vocalist and songwriter Maynard James Keenan began slowly.  And then he paused.  And he paused still.  And he finally finished, "Joey and Dee Dee."  The band jumped into an extremely heavy cover of the Ramones' "Commando," baffling some fans and driving others into an approving fit of screams.
  • Robin A. Rothman, "Tool Takes Radio City," Rolling Stone (14 August 2002).
• What can I say about 10,000 Days, really?  It sounds exactly and precisely like a Tool album.  They might as well have not have released it at all, because anyone who's ever heard Tool could simply imagine what a new Tool album would sound like, and this is exactly what they'd imagine.
• First up, "Vicarious": a Dateline Special Report on violence in the news media featuring guest commentator Maynard James Keenan.  Excellent!  I've been hoping to hear Maynard weigh in on the hottest issue of 1990.
• Particularly impressed was I with "Lipan Conjuring," which was so thoughtful an addition to the album that I feel as if it were included just for me.  You see, I went to the record store with only fifteen dollars in my pocket, and I had a devil of a time deciding between 10,000 Days and Native Moods: A Pathway to Peace.  On one hand, I love rockin' out to some ten-minute chugging shuffles, but there's another part of my soul that craves the inner harmony that can only be brought on from some high-quality chanting.  It was with a heavy heart that I left the store carrying only one of these two things— or so I thought!  Imagine my immense pleasure when my hard rock album was interrupted— no, that's too harsh a word— when my hard rock album was magnificently bolstered by exactly the sort of stupid fucking crap I might hear on some grocery store counter impulse buy CD of New Age chanting bullshit!  Bravo!  I can have my cake and eat it too, and while I eat my cake I can listen to some total crap!
  • Dr. David Thorpe, "Tool's 10,000 Days," Something Awful (Tuesday, 9 May 2006).
• Tool are one of the few bands who have made themselves famous by disregarding all expectations of them.
• A strangely chatty Maynard James Keenan broke his self-imposed exile and spoke casually to the crowd, inciting them to a cheer of "Yes!" and sometimes sharing his thoughts, most of which were unashamedly eccentric to say the least.
• With their feet firmly planted on their spot on the stage and their faces obscured by their long hair, the players simply let their instruments communicate, and made no attempt to try it any other way.  Adam Jones in particular was a foreboding figure – his sheer stillness contrasted drastically by the strained and pained sounds he forced from his guitar.
• [T]he band were as impeccably precise on their instruments as they are on record, with every dynamic, subtlety and thread of power displayed flawlessly.
• As esoteric and arcane as their music tends to be, there's no doubt that this unique group of musicians weave their magic to everlasting effect.
  • Kev Truong, "Tool, The Melvins, Osseus Labyrint - April 24th, 2002 - Sydney, Australia @ Sydney Entertainment Centre," Blistering.
• The album art was a unique design created by artist Alex Grey.  The art is different layers of patterns with the different layers of the human body.  In Alex Grey's book "Transfigurations" he says the "saw blade" made of eyes "represents the primordial spirit of emptiness and awareness.  The next layer was a vajra emitting energy, the subtle essence of soul around which the physical body coagulates.  The next several layers detail the physical systems of viscera, skeletal, muscular, nervous, and cardiovascular systems."
  • Sam Wolfe, "Interesting Facts About Tool's Music," SamWolfe.com (Saturday, 30 March 2013).

• Official website
• Art website